Curriculum Overview

Intent

Our curriculum is designed with three goals in mind:

A curriculum that values supports and reflects our school community; an ambitious and inclusive curriculum that provides academic excellence for local children.
A design that allows all our pupils to progress academically: our A Level and BTEC offer has been carefully selected with our pupils in mind and built coherently from our Key Stage 3 & 4 offer. Within each subject, core knowledge is chosen carefully, and long-term plans are well-thought-out, with big ideas and endpoints selected by experts in each field. Barriers and misconceptions which our pupils typically face in understanding our ambitious content are pre-empted, and strategies are embedded into curriculum design to help them overcome these. Content is deliberately sequenced and spaced to embed knowledge into long-term memory, and assessments are carefully planned to allow teachers to understand the progress of each pupil.
A design that allows all our pupils to flourish: a personal development curriculum that supports our sixth form pupils in navigating the wider world; an extensive career curriculum that ensures our pupils are future-focused, ambitious in their destination choices, and well-supported so that they can reach their goal. We give our Sixth Form pupils extensive opportunities to develop interpersonal and leadership skills through taking on wider roles and responsibilities within the school community, and we offer a wide range of trips and visits (home and abroad) and experiences that have been carefully thought out and sequenced to truly bring cultural capital.

Implementation

In the Sixth Form, our curriculum is arranged across traditional subject areas, all of which engage every pupil by allowing them to aim high, think hard, and work collaboratively to secure knowledge. Clear routines and structures for collaborative learning ensure our classrooms are inclusive spaces where the thoughts and ideas of every pupil are heard. This allows teachers to challenge pupils, assess learning and adapt teaching accordingly. Additionally, deep thinking strategies allow pupils to explore new and existing knowledge through a range of approaches that encourage higher-order thinking and chunking down information, which both lead to longer-term retention. This retention is aided by retrieval activities that are embedded within and across lessons. In lessons, our teachers have high standards for the ways in which pupils communicate their verbal and written answers, as we believe this is integral in aiding them to flourish. Independent study and homework are also carefully planned and sequenced to give pupils the opportunity to embed a deeper understanding of content within long-term memory.

Impact

Sixth Form pupils achieve highly at Saint George’s, and we are proud that our pupils remain in education, employment, or training beyond the Sixth Form because they have not only developed academically but also flourished holistically. To monitor the impact of our curriculum, teachers and leaders regularly assess pupils and adapt their lessons accordingly. Through quality assurance, external partnerships, and stakeholder feedback, we regularly review our curriculum to ensure it continues to give the highest value to our pupils. We are proud that our pupils take powerful knowledge, skills, and wisdom with them when they leave; they carry our Christian values into wider society and are broadminded, articulate, empathetic, and respectful citizens because of their time at Saint George’s.